Posted
by
kdawson
on Monday March 02, 2009 @08:05PM
from the you-have-none dept.

rar42 writes "Clause 152 of the Coroners and Justice Bill, currently being debated by the UK Parliament, would allow any Minister by order to take from anywhere any information gathered for one purpose, and use it for any other purpose. Personal information arbitrarily used without consent or even knowledge: the very opposite of 'Data Protection.' An 'Information Sharing Order', as defined in Clause 152, would permit personal information to be trafficked and abused, not only all across government and the public sector — it would also reach into the private sector. And it would even allow transfer of information across international borders. NO2ID has launched a Facebook group to challenge this threat to data protection."

I believe that the slippery slope argument is a logical fallacy in most cases. (To implement laws that you don't want through what? Political momentum?)

The slippery slope argument is a logical fallacy only when it's used as deductive reasoning. But when you apply inductive reasoning, which is arguably much more applicable to politics, the slippery slope holds up nicely.

Every time A has happened, B has resulted.If we let A happen again, B will probably happen.

Pretty rock-solid, if you ask me. If you replace A with "The government has reduced the people's right to privacy, in order to increase the government's power" and B with "The people have grown to accept their reduced rights, and the government has still wanted more power", you have the current situation.

If we (or rather, "they," as I'm not British) accept this invasion, then the government will likely be left wanting more, and the people will grow ever more complacent. It's happened every time thus far, why think that it'll be different this time?

It just goes to show why the populace would fight, or at least be cautious and try to restrain govt. from pretty much ANY law they want to pass, especially with regard to police needs and personal privacy.

The govt. will never stop at the originally intended intent of the law, no matter how much they promise to limit the reach of the law for the intended use that 'everyone can agree with'.

The govt. ALWAYS will later, expand upon said law to use it in new and creative ways never intended, or try to stretch it to be used to prosecute someone that might have done something, but, there currently isn't a direct law that applies (like with that lady who harrased a teen online, and said teen killed herself).

Heck...look at the new and creative ways in the past decade that they have been expanding the RICO act which was put in place only to target the mob.

We should insist that most new laws are not only VERY narrowly defined, but that they also have sunset provisions....to give the public at least a fighting chance to not only keep laws from expanding in scope, but, to also have hope that some that are downright bad...have a chance to go away.

Well if they do it like they've been doing here in the USA they'll just say it is to catch those nasty pedos and then nobody will dare speak against it. The pedo has become the 21st century boogie man, like the commie in the 50s. They tried using terrorists but found that it doesn't shut up critics like pedo does. After all surely YOU don't want to let those evil pedos get away now, do you?

They do use that argument, but the favourite phrase by far is "without these tools, the police will be hampered in their efforts to protect us from terrorists, criminals and illegal immigrants".

With the implied argument that if you're a 'civil liberties campaigner' who dares argue against the database state, you're in favour of the terrorists, criminals and illegal immigrants getting away scot-free.

The govt. will never stop at the originally intended intent of the law, no matter how much they promise to limit the reach of the law for the intended use that 'everyone can agree with'.

One thing which is uncertain is if said law will actually be used its "intended purpose" (the reason it was claimed to be needed in the first place.) e.g. In the UK non of the recent anti-terrorism laws appear to have been used against terrorists who cannot be portrayed as "Islamic". However it turns out that none of these

it turns out that none of these laws are actually needed to sucessfully prosecute terrorists.

Yup, who'd have thought that planning to murder people, building bombs, and distributing material suggesting other people should commit murder has been illegal for a long, long time?

In the UK non [sic] of the recent anti-terrorism laws appear to have been used against terrorists who cannot be portrayed as "Islamic".

But they have been used against protesters, random people who look a bit shifty, and my mate who left his bike locked up outside a train station, apparently calling up a terror alert in case he'd filled the frame with nitroglycerine and nails.

All those terror laws actually did was mean the police don't need to remember the names

Every time A has happened, B has resulted.If we let A happen again, B will probably happen.

Pretty rock-solid, if you ask me.

Well, remind me not to in the future. This is certainly not rock solid. You assume (like all people who use the slippery slope argument in this context) that people will take any abuse from the government just because they take a little abuse from the government (assuming, of course, that this is abuse, and not people feeling insecure and running to the government for help), that means

Every time the Sun has set, it has risen.The Sun set a few hours ago for me, yet I'm confident that it will rise again.

I don't need a deductive proof to know it.

Or another example, if I flip a coin and have it land heads 100 times in a row, I can be pretty confident that if I flip it again, it will land on heads again. "Gamblers' Fallacy!" you might mistakenly claim. But it's not... the odds a of a fair coin landing on heads a hundred times in a row are on the order of 1 in 10^30. More likely, I have found a biased coin.

To consider your "gulp of saltwater at the ocean" example, you are thinking only of an isolated incident. That doesn't make a pattern. Now, if you swallowed a mouthful of saltwater every single time you went to the beach, twenty times in a row, then yes, I'd say it's likely that you will swallow yet another on your 21st visit.

Deductive logic is great for mathematicians. For everything else, inductive logic is our best tool.

I think what is missing from the current picture, or any picture from around the world was implied by the war in Iraq, or at least by some of those perpetuating it: If you show people some freedom they will naturally grab hold of it and demand democracy and freedom for themselves. What is unknown is what it takes to move a westernized populace to revolt en mass. What amount of salt must a western government grind with it's boots into the wounds of its citizens rights before they revolt with guns, bombs, and

True. Protesting on Facebook works on Facebook -- hence the Facebook protests that occur every other week about some trivial change to something on the site.

No2ID have the right idea. But... they really, really need to get their PR machine working. There's next to nothing ever mentioned about them anywhere. They need to be organizing much more high profile stuff. They need to be getting in the press regularly and frequently.

Having a Facebook group is fine, but it will achieve nothing by itself. Get it together people, because you do have a lot of support, you just need to channel it much, much better than you are currently doing.

No2ID have the right idea. But... they really, really need to get their PR machine working. [...] They need to be organizing much more high profile stuff. They need to be getting in the press regularly and frequently.

I don't know which press you've been reading, but NO2ID have been mentioned in just about every article on anything related to this subject that I've seen for the past several years. I'd guess only Liberty manage to attract more coverage opposing these issues, and even that might not be true any more.

No2ID have the right idea. But... they really, really need to get their PR machine working. There's next to nothing ever mentioned about them anywhere. They need to be organizing much more high profile stuff. They need to be getting in the press regularly and frequently.

That's a major affirmative.

I'm in the US and I've attempted to contact them a couple of times about potentially expanding to help fight similar foolishness in the US. After all, it seems like whatever one idiot English-speaking country does, the rest soon follow, whether or not it's a sensible idea. Noone ever got back to me.

No2ID has been running for several years now without doing anything to discredit itself and its members, such as aligning itself with the far right, carrying out violent protests, or endorsing a particular party. Those are the sort of wrecking tactics that we might expect the Government to use if it secretly controlled them.

However, its main problem is that it is an unfashionable issue. The main stream media is to blame for this. Instead of warning people about the ID register, they have encouraged complacency and the "doesn't bother me, I have nothing to hide" attitude which is so dangerous in an effective democracy.

No surprise, then, that No2ID rarely gets a mention. To their credit, the BBC do link to the No2ID site when it's relevant, and they do get quotes from the No2ID people, but they tend only to include these as a token "opposing viewpoint" and not a real argument.

Protesting within 1km of Parliament in the UK is illegal, unless you've been given Police permission. Even people with blank white placards, protesting that they're not allowed to protest, have been arrested.

Protester Brian Haw's still in Parliament Square because his protest pre-dated the poorly-drafted Serious Organised Crime and Police Act 2005.

Facebook groups aren't created with the hope of people in power looking at the amount of people in the group and thinking "Oh, let's do something about that". They're created to spread the word- the point is that Facebook groups are viral, each time someone you know joins it you will see about it on your profile page or whatever. If you join, your friends will see about it too. This spreads and spreads so that more people are aware of the issue than otherwise would be.

you could argue that non-anonymously protesting something like this shows the event is a bit more significant that a few mouse clicks -- if these people are right about what they are protesting, then their name would end up in a database of "people known to object to government activities" which can then be shared around.

i agree that objecting to other things via facebook isn't that significant (if you care send an email, or even better write the email, but print it out and post it), but publicly protesting potential privacy breaches?

LOL i did not thought of this... just thought that protesting on facebook was childish and stupid... forgot about it being public and personal...

So summing up... to protest against public misuse of private databases they decide to make a private database of people protesting against public misuse of private databases... BRILLIANT, at least it shows a highly evolved sense of ironic humor

...if you didn't see this coming. I don't think anyone believed for a minute that any government worker would idly sit on a data goldmine, and not utilize to its full capability. Which is why the proper response to any request for linking databases or collecting any data outside of that necessary for filing charges is "Are you crazy?"

I'd also like to point out that facebook groups are the new Internet petitions: completely meaningless. Either call or mail your representative, or take it like a good consumer.

Don't forget that the government even wants to ban kitchen knives! [bbc.co.uk]

All for the sake of reducing "knife violence".

Remember folks: "gun violence" and "knife violence" are already illegal. In every jurisdiction in the U.S., there's already a law against "assault with a deadly weapon". I'm sure that U.K. jurisdictions have a similar law.

There is hope for me about the UK. People are starting to realize that the government isn't looking out for their best interests, especially among the younger generations.

There is no hope.

Sometimes things just need to get so bad that people want to leave and go someplace else. Then the people who control those people put up 25ft concrete walls surrounding them and shoot anyone trying to get out.

After awhile, the economy goes to shit, and the standard of living plummets. The young listen to the old about h

The British public support this measure and others like it every single morning when they buy sensationalist, right wing papers whose sole objective seems to be to prevent the Government from acting in any kind of reasonable or rational way. Hence CCTV mania, databases and ID cards.

The British public do NOT support these kinds of measures. They only think they do because The Sun tells them so. Most of the people in the UK are brainless SkyTV addicted reality tv watching idiots (very much like the Nascar/reality tv watching rednecks in the states). The Sun prints something and they believe it because they want to fit in, are too lazy to think for themselves and believe that everyone else feels the same way. If they ever actually discussed these issues or even saw other real people (reality tv is not real people) they'd find that others dont approve of these measures.

the public don't support these measures, but the public is not consulted. At election time your choice is between different asshats. No matter who you vote for, the government get in, and the government is not on your side.

The only thing keeping the country sane at this point is the BBC and the conservative upper classes. May the gods help us all.

I'm concerned that you feel the BBC are some sort of beacon of hope. I see them as more the organ of the state. There's next to nothing about the erosion of people's rights on the BBC. There's no critical investigations of the effectiveness of CCTV nor any other measures. There's not even the slightest hint that we may be doomed by Jaquboots Smith, Jackboots Straw, or Gordon Brown-

The Daily Mail piss and moan about the "nanny state" enough, granted. But that's because there's a Labour government in power right now. If (when) the Tories were in power, they'd be pulling the same shit and the Mail would be praising them for it.

The Daily Mail are as much a part of the problem as anything. Their fear-mongering reactionary and sensationalist stories about immigrants coming over

No, most people in the UK do not want this, in any way, shape or form.The UK suffers from the "Silent Majority", where most people are just trying hard to get on with their lives, and make the world more livable. The voices that are always heard the loudest are from minority groups that scream very loud about their latest cause celebre, and this is actively encouraged by the current Government.. If you're in a majority group and speak loud, then you're tagged 'Oppressive' and derided; only if you've got s

Slight correction: they are useful for making people feel like they are rallying and coordinating activities. They provide a nice outlet for people's urge to "stick it to the man" (usually by complaining), without actually accomplishing anything - everybody wins!

Really people, stop bitching, and start encrypting everything, using bank accounts in countries like Switzerland, and doing everything possible to minimize the data collected on you. Of course, you'll be labeled a terrorist for going "off grid", but if you want privacy anymore these days, you need to control your exposure. You. Personally.

That only works until the mere presence of encryption (or any dataset that merely appears to be encrypted) is criminalized to a high degree. They'll do whatever they can to make the average citizen perceive encryption as too risky.

That only works until the mere presence of encryption (or any dataset that merely appears to be encrypted) is criminalized to a high degree. They'll do whatever they can to make the average citizen perceive encryption as too risky.

compressed data can be "trivially" returned to the original without any extra knowledge (other than the details of the compressions scheme) encrypted data, even with complete knowledge of the mathematical transform done, can't be undone without finding the extra info somehow. (also compressed data is basically always smaller, encrypted data is usually the same size, plus a header.

It is good practice to use both, so that breaking the encryption on a low entropy message is much harder (as it'll be compressed to a short, high entropy burst, and so no assumptions about "weak messages" can be made).

If you use an obscure compression method, then to automated filters there wouldn't be a difference.

If you use an obscure compression method, then to automated filters there wouldn't be a difference.

That depends whether the filter is designed to try common decompression methods, or whether it's designed to detect entropy.

Encrypted data should be indistinguishable from random noise, whereas there is definitely order to plaintext compressed data.

Stenanography is another matter.

But really, the best way to combat ubiquitous state surveillance (assuming you can't just legislate it away) is to make it prohibitively expensive, which means ubiquitous personal encryption. Alas, the general public aren't going t

Using Swiss bank accounts may be a partial solution, but you're still going to have tax records, NHS records, driving licences, passports, etc. that you can't encrypt, and which you can't prevent inappropriate people from seeing (such as government ministers... including the unelected ones). Encryption only helps with respect to personal communication. There are lots of transactions that require more insecure types of communication, unfortunately.

Well, New Labour might not get elected again if we're not living in fear of terrorists, criminals and illegal immigrants. Got to give the police all the powers they need to fight these terrible crimes and protect us.

Oh wait, you said citizens. But when 'if you've nothing to hide, you've nothing to fear' is pretty much the win-every-time argument with the citizenry, they're rather getting what they wanted in the first place.

Why? Why is the UK so bent on tracking this shit all the time. The purpose of government and legislation is to facilitate interactions between people in some manner. I don't see the social service this provides to the welfare of the people? They are already tracking emails and phone calls unconditionally. All internet traffic is going through proxied servers (as evident during wikipedia incident with "child porn" on an album cover). Cameras all over cities. Seriously has anyone stopped to consider if all this technology is even EFFECTIVE (in use)? Furthermore, the fact that this "bypass" is given exclusive to the Minister is a big warning sign. I bet they're too scared to give people the same rights. The biggest risk of all this; ofcourse, is that augmentation of such data over a long period of time can pretty much be construed to incriminate anyone. What a waste of government resources.

The government has discovered that by enacting legislation like this, they can generate almost limitless energy by sticking magnets on George Orwell's coffin and wrapping the whole thing in a copper coil. (There may be a requirement to immerse the whole apparatus in mineral oil to dissipate the heat generated by the ridiculously high speeds at which Orwell is expected to rotate).

No, an Australian. I have a copy of our constitution right here. The entire document rests on one statement that (basically) the Queen is in charge and may (or may not) appoint a Government to run things. If the UK is actually more democratic I would be very surprised. Personally I am waiting to see who's head rolls first.

Unlike your schooling system, which (as I understand it) teaches the constitution, the amendments and so on - and engrains the whole spirit of 'the government should fear their people', the UK has none of this.

The Magna Carta is not taught as part of UK National Curriculum. (It may be taught in private schools, but as another poster observed - the upper class that can afford private schools are the ones enlightened enough to fight this... The ignorant masses

Why exactly did Great Britain fight Hitler?Churchill said some crap about liberties, freedom & stuff like that.(of course he was a racist pig and a cancer-inducing chronic smoker who slept when London burned).Seems Hitler's ideas won after all. Lets step back a moment and analyze him:1) He kept saying that the Soviets are a menace and communism must be wiped out.Which became the mantra of UK and USA after WW2.2) He racially profiled people: USA does the same under Truman, FDR and Bush. UK does it explicitly. Hell churchill was an exponent of freedom for all, but vehemently (and violently) denied the same to British Colonies.3) He believed in Rule of law (the Reich laws of racism were based on US laws). So does UK and USA.4) He refused to prosecute the Reich Police and Armed Forces who violated the law. Tasering police and fasle-evidence-planting police and murdering soldiers go scot-free in UK and USA.5) He always thought that the State was bigger than the Individual. Hell yeah!6) He was a proponent of tracking the smallest activity of the individual. So does UK.

So, it is proven as a theorem that Hitler's ideals are what UK is following.Looks like he won after all!Wow! Our brave Hurriance pilots, the brave lonely men in Bombers who did not return home, the men who braved Omaha and Gallipoli, and the countless WACs who wept when their men died will all be happy to learn this.

Whilst your post is rather sensationalist and outright false on some issues, I do have to agree that as a British citizen one of the things that makes me appalled by the current situation is remembering the stories my grandfather, a D-Day veteran told me. Him and millions like him did not fight and die for our freedoms only for them to be taken away by our own government.

As more people of that era pass away less and less people realise how important and how hard fought for our freedoms were. I still have tw

The most powerful argument I have heard for use of surveillance technology is that people that don't break the law should not fear it. The problem is what if the laws change to suit the people in power. We don't need to give the government power that it does not need, but if we need to give them power to protect us it must come at a great cost to them. Regulate the access of the information. Make the process completely transparent. If abuse occurs make the system stop functioning or let the abused go free. It is safe guards like these that ensure the legal system. Why can't it be applied to all government functions.

The most powerful argument I have heard for use of surveillance technology is that people that don't break the law should not fear it. The problem is what if the laws change to suit the people in power.

In many cases there are so many laws that people will break several a day. Thus it can be more a case of changing which (and how) laws are enforced...

We don't need to give the government power that it does not need, but if we need to give them power to protect us it must come at a great cost to them.

Please excuse the sensationalism, but the UK-style parlementary systems look very much like elected dictatorships. There are no checks & balances against the government power where the executive is not even separate from the legislative.

As a concrete exampke, I offer the spectacles of Tony Blair putting down three separate back-bencher revolts against him. Labour traditionally had no business supporting the US, particularly over Iraq. Most of the Labour voters were against Iraq. But for some reason Tony thought differently. And was able to impose his will. How would be interesting to know.

Please note, I am not claiming US-style presidential systems are better. They are certainly less democratic in the sense that the people's will is often thwarted.

On this privacy issue, UK citizens may need to fall back to the EU courts and constitution. Rather ironic, the birthplace of freedom (Magna Carta) have to rely on the continent with fewer and a horrible history of citizens serving the state.

The government can only rule as long as a majority of the house of commons support them. In the back-bench revolts you mention, Tony Blair survived due to1) having a HUGE majority, so able to weather a large number of dissenters2) support from the opposition parties, when the legislation was one they rather liked.

The upper house can make passing bad legislation very painful and drawn out indeed, though not block it altogether.

Finally, the UK government does not control the military; the Crown is nominal hea

The UK just wants to cover itself.
The good old days of standing before the "house" and saying 'we' do not spy on UK citizens is over.
Allowing the NSA spy at will from bases within the UK.
Spying on "Ireland"http://www.independent.co.uk/news/gchq-spies-eavesdropped-on-irish-1106575.html [independent.co.uk]
The problem is not the spying, or allowing US bases to spy.
The problem for your average UK MP critter is getting exposed lying to the house.
A baited question about domestic public/corporate surveillance and this helps with that.
The MP can face questions in the house knowing they will be covered as they spin.

I did. It isn't hard and mine is going to vote against it. Of course he is in the opposition so it isn't too surprising, but wherever you are in the UK you can write to your MP (by email- its very easy) and a letter writing campaign by valid constituents is going to be noticed. A facebook campaign isn't quite the same thing. Here is my letter and the response [theopensourcerer.com] and here is where you go to write to your MP [writetothem.com]

This legislation is truly terrifying. It allows the government to aggregate all data that they keep about you. It would mean that the government was exempt of the key points of the Data Protection Act.

Yes, he fought on the side of communists, (Russian and International) as well as anarchists during the Spanish Civil War. Everyone who read 1984 and understood its message should also read Homage to Catalonia, his factual account of the Civil War. He knew that you could take the horrible tools of repression and what they might look like if machined in England.

There wasn't a "side of communists [and] anarchists" in the Spanish Civil War. Communists and anarchists fought for the elected Republican government in preference to the fascist rebellion, so it would be accurate to say that he fought alongside communists and anarchists but it was on the side of democracy.

Not quite accurate; Orwell fought for a Trotskyist faction called POUM - he fought on the front line with them and also engaged in military action in conjunction with anarchists, and then ended up fighting Stalinists on the streets of Barcelona. He was genuinely supportive of the social revolution in Catalonia at the time and was certainly not fighting for contemporary liberal democracy.

Phillip Pullman also did a great piece [littlemanwhatnow.com] in the Times related to, although not specifically about, this recently. Oddly, it got pulled by the Times with no explanation. I wonder why?

If half of the "UK is out to get it's citizens" articles here are to be believed - you might as well give up and get out as it appears that the fascists have taken over the UK government and nothing you can do will make it otherwise short of a revolution.

Or just challenge it in the European Court of Human Rights. They're likely to view such a change as a clear violation of the Data Protection Directive unless they think they can seriously walk such broad lifting of protections under the exemptions. [cdt.org]

Having the DNA records of hundreds of thousands of innocent people - including young children - stored on the police database indefinitely was ruled illegal by the Court recently.

So far, the UK government has done jack all about changing the situation, and is muttering about having a consultation about maybe putting in place a machanism by which innoncent people can have their DNA removed from the database, considering the merits, in exceptional circumstances. But the police of course constantly trump how important the database is tofighting crime and preventing terrorism, and of course they care about civil liberties, but they have to balance those in a fair manner against the need to fight crime effectively.There are already such rules in place, but the case has to be pretty damn exceptional indeed to get your details off, even if you've never been convicted of anything.

Any such ruling by the court of human rights regarding other illegal data collection and mining would also likely be ignored, as the council of ministers and even the parliament is leaning towards ever greater data retention laws, such as the one passed in 2005.

Meanwhile, the Prime Minister considers introducing a special law to deal with one (very unpopular) retired banker with a huge pension that was approved by his Government. How democratic [blogspot.com].

When senior police (aka politicians in uniforms) start claiming that we "need" these things in order to stay safe I have to laugh. Especially when people like Dame Stella Rimington, a lady who knows a darn sight more about any "terrorist threat" (ex-MI5 head), comes out and says what a load of rubbish they're talking [bbc.co.uk]. Makes me wonder if there actually *is* hope for us on this little island.

You forget, we never elected the current administration in the first place. Fortunately, we will certainly get a chance to unelect them in the fairly near future.

Perhaps, in the spirit of the "changing the law to get one person is OK because public opinion that we've stirred up is against him" news articles we've seen this week, the next administration could change the law retrospectively so we could try the current lot for crimes against humanity?

No, we elected the current Parliament. The government is elected by a constituency of one, the Prime Minister, who is also elected by a constituency of one, the Queen, who takes into account the party distribution within Parliament.

No need wo worry, even if you had one, you surely won't next year. I am expecting bankruptcies to exeed the level they were in the last recession - where, three years in a row, 33% of companies were wiped out. (ie leaving about 15% of the original number of businesses) and there were considerable losses in the years before and after this exciting catastrophy.

I fully expect 50% of businesses to go in this year, and each of the two following years. This will leave less than 10%